Case study: Why Tune Talk decided to challenge social prejudices

Details

Staff Writer

17 April 2017

Tune Talk is always in search of the right opportunity to create a source of inspiration to all Malaysians. The focus is frequently building and developing niche segments of certain communities, which will then grow together and be strongly associated with the brand.

“Malaysians are known to unite and be involved in a synergetic relationship with the team that represents them, giving their utmost support while at the same time drawing inspiration from the team," Fara Hasan, head of communications, Tune Talk.

"The country at moment is home to many talented para athletes and some are already world champions. A movement is needed to expand the coverage for these individuals as well as build a strong base at the grassroots level," she added.

Hasan explained that the company is inspired by these individuals, and wants Malaysian to experience the same. The company, therefore, plans to spearhead the movement to grow public interest, expand the coverage for the para athletes, and highlight their talent.

This post was done in conjunction with Tune Talk. The company won silver for Best PR Campaign by an In-house Communications Team, and bronze for Best CSR Communications during the recent PR Awards.

Background:

To stand out in an intensely competitive Malaysian telecommunications ecosystem, the company needed to break away from typical conventions and strategies, and adopt an entire new way to build the brand. However, with the mobile penetration rate in Malaysia at above 140%, new acquisitions are extremely difficult.

As fragmented as the audience is in a country that is segmented by race and a wide socio-economic demography, a key platform needed to be identified; and its value and effect on the audience evaluated to ascertain the potential for Tune Talk to use it as a marketing opportunity. What it needed was a platform that harmonised with its brand spirit of being a challenger brand and to meet the business objectives for increasing data usage.

Objective:

The awareness of the paralympic scene has grown since its introduction in 1960 at the first Paralympic Games in Rome, but the exposure towards the scene and its extraordinary athletes in Malaysia still lags behind able-bodied athletes.

The country has a very strong paralympic team, especially in this region, with a handful of world champions who are respected globally. The infrastructure provided by the sports ministry is sufficient to discover and produce future stars.

Tune Talk aimed to bring more exposure to our heroes, the para athletes who are among the best, if not living legends in the sporting arena. The company wanted to garner public interest, ensuring consistent coverage given to the athletes.

It also wanted to break down the walls of prejudice, discrimination as well as changing the perception of the public by showcasing their courage and determination to motivate and empower everyone through sports.

At the grassroots level, Tune Talk spearheaded the movement to open the eyes of potential para athletes, who are looking for the right path to discover and enhance their talent.

Strategy:

#KamiLuarBiasa, a concept conceived by Hasan, acts as the key component of the Malaysian Invasion Spirit In Motion (MISIM), which brings to the forefront talents of para athletes and at the same time discovers new talents. 2016 was a significant year for MISIM since it was launched at the same time as Rio Paralympic Games.

This was seen as the best opportunity to highlight the journey and success of the athletes to change the paralympic sports ecosystem in Malaysia, opening the eyes of potential para athletes at the grassroots level. Tune Talk therefore initiated a four-pronged strategy to maximise the exposure and communication about the athletes.

The four-pronged strategy:

Social media: Malaysia has a thriving digital landscape in which the public spends a huge chunk of their time daily browsing their numerous social media platforms. MISIM was active on all major platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) so we could maximise the reach based on Malaysians’ preferences, providing them with content, updates and campaigns for them to take part in. During the Rio Paralympic Games, the MISIM social media accounts were the main source of updates, sending news back to Malaysia for everyone.

Online linear TV channel: In 2016, Tune Talk launched Crap TV, which is Malaysia’s first and leading online linear TV channel, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, featuring the most exciting content for viewers as well as having the expertise to conduct live-streaming of major events to drive viewers and fans to watch.

During the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, every event that involved a Malaysian athlete was streamed live to provide Malaysians back home the best coverage of the performances. They only needed to go to Crap TV to see the para athletes battle in high definition.

This co-operation ensured the public knew where to view their athletes because coverage by the local mainstream media was very limited to almost nothing. The Crap TV team also had personnel at the venue for live crossovers for commentaries and instant live updates.

Traditional media: “The Malaysian Invasion Spirit in Motion: a movement to inspire – a TV series” was launched early in 2016. The series showcased MISIM’s journey in finding future para athletes from all over the country and all 11 weekly episodes were shown on TV1, every Saturday at 9pm starting 16 July, 2016. Those selected were sent for 10 days of intensive training and three lucky para athletes were flown to Brazil to experience the Rio games, and be a part of the Malaysian contingent there.

The series also closely followed the development of Malaysia’s para athletes in Rio, capturing historic moments that happened.

Above-the-line media (billboard and newspapers): To establish the movement, strategically located billboards were selected to depict inspiring visuals of our athletes to inject the feeling of amazement among the public. They also contained a call-to-action for the public to follow all updates about Rio on all MISIM’s social media and to tune into the TV series.

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Execution:

The execution was carried out on social media. Since MISIM was an initiative to garner public interest and give consistent updates on our athletes and break prejudices, #KamiLuarBiasa was launched to change the perception of the public towards these athletes, rebranding them from the word “disabled” to “extraordinary” or “luarbiasa” in Bahasa Malaysia. Any updates by MISIM or organic updates by the public had to be followed by #KamiLuarBiasa.

Results:

The social media campaign for MISIM went into full swing from the 14th of July to the 1st of October 2016. The hashtags used throughout the campaign were #MISIM, #KamiLuarBiasa, #TerbangLatifTerbang and #SelamatPulangWira.

The campaign generated 237,036 posts on social media and #MISIM and #KamiLuarBiasa also attracted a total of 78,485 contributors across all platforms.

In three months, the campaign successfully reached out to 144,158,189 unique accounts on social media. This proved the campaign was successful in creating awareness of our para athletes.

#MISIM and #KamiLuarBiasa were circulated a total of 821,465,114 times on social media throughout the campaign.

On 11 September, 2016, the hashtag #TerbangLatifTerbang was created to support our para-athlete Latif Romly in his long jump event. It generated 67,472 posts from 26,197 contributors with a reach of 30,862,511 and 137,350,102 impressions.

#SelamatPulangWira was created and used on the 22 September, 2016, in conjunction with the homecoming of our national para athletes from the games. It generated 2,462 posts by 1,954 contributors with a reach of 10,179,270 and 9,172,236 impressions.

Crap TV: Viewership of the live-stream was very healthy although the time difference between Malaysia and Brazil was 11 hours. An average of 42,000 views were recorded within the duration of the Rio Paralympic Games with the highest views during the moment Ridzuan Puzi gave Malaysia its first ever gold medal.

The MISIM TV series: Although the airing times were affected by local events in the country, the viewership throughout the whole 11 episodes remained high. The highest number of viewers recorded was from the final episode which was about the winners’ experience in Rio and also the coverage of the historic three gold medal haul by Ridzuan Puzi, Ziyad Zolkefli and Latif Romly.

Moreover, through MISIM, Tune Talk managed to change the perception towards these extraordinary individuals. They are no longer viewed with pity, but now Malaysians are amazed by what they can achieve. We have also managed to open the eyes of parents who used to hide their disabled kids from the public.

Right now, more and more parents are sending their children for training to discover their natural talent. Disability is not inability. The #KamiLuarBiasa initiative has forever changed how all of us perceive what a disability is.